Monthly Archives: February 2010

First real post in February, have been busy with other stuff, and using FaceBook as a blog alternative due to sheer laziness. Not going to promise to “do better,” it is what it is, and I do what I do!

This post is prompted by the recent rampant stupidity of Republicans trying to re-establish themselves as a viable political party. In the past few weeks, they have succeeded only in making absolute fools of themselves by continuing to unreasonably oppose absolutely everything done by, or proposed by the Obama administration. At one point, even hypocritically criticizing the handling of the Detroit underwear bomber, even though the administration treated him in exactly the same manner in which the Bush administration treated the shoe bomber!

Almost immediately after Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab failed to detonate a bomb on an airplane on Christmas Day, conservatives rushed to politicize the attempted terrorist attack. “People have got to start connecting the dots here and maybe this is the thing that will connect the dots for the Obama administration,” Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) said before he’d even been briefed on the incident. Karl Rove and Rep. Peter King (R-NY) criticized President Obama for issuing a statement on the failed bombing 72 hours after the event, even though President Bush waited longer to comment on “shoe-bomber” Richard Reid’s failed attempt to bring down an airliner in Dec. 2001.

On Christmas night, I called a number of senior members of Congress. I spoke to Senators McConnell and Bond, I spoke to Representative Boehner and Hoekstra. I explained to them that he was in FBI custody, that Mr. Abdulmutallab was, in fact, talking, that he was cooperating at that point. They knew that “in FBI custody” means that there’s a process then you follow as far as Mirandizing and presenting him in front of a magistrate. None of those individuals raised any concerns with me at that point.

After Brennan called them out for lying, Republicans and some on FOX demanded his resignation! How stupid do they think the American people are? Just how much doublespeak do they think they can get away with? The answer is that for some of their base there seems to be no limit whatsoever.

St. Sarah has even weighed-in on the global warming question. Snake oil, she says! Nothing like a total moron trying to pretend she actually knows anything at all about anything of substance. She’s like a grade-school student who knows lots of big words, and just doesn’t quite know what they mean or how to use them in context.

Fortunately, most Americans give her fairly short shrift, as shown in these poll results.

Perhaps most of the sheen has worn off, and people are beginning to see her as the idiot she is, totally bereft of any of the qualities that make even a good person, let alone a national leader.

If you were a politician with your eye on a national office, or a political party trying to regain national stature, would you choose to do it by advocating abolishing the two most popular programs that the U.S. government has? I’m talking about Social Security and Medicare, two programs that are all that’s keeping many of our seniors from dying or living on the streets.

The Republicans have been rightfully criticized lately for merely standing against Obama proposals while presenting no new or viable ideas of their own. Well, now they have! They are presenting a proposal to privatize Social Security and Medicare, forcing those not on the programs already into private accounts, and providing vouchers to buy overpriced medical insurance. Boy, I can hardly wait for them to attempt to run on those ideas. Should be political Armageddon, at least one would hope so.

I think we really need at least two (I wish it were more) viable political parties, with different views and philosophies, but that’s not what we have. We have two parties, both of which cater to big business and finance, at the expense of the rest of us, and one of whom continues on a self-inflicted slide into irrelevance.

Scott came home today by bus, and I gave up trying to make FB upload pictures. Gethyn and I were there along with his family, of course. He is done now, even though he has another two years to go on his guard contract, he doesn’t have enough time for another deployment.

"The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. ...The plain lesson is that study and learning – not just of science, but of anything – are avoidable and even undesirable.”